Mumbai Cyber Safe: Promised spike in followers, 16-yr-old loses 55K on Instagram

Mumbai: A businessman from Goregaon was left baffled when he recently checked his bank account and realised that only Rs 0.08 was remaining in his account. He then enquired with his 16-year-old daughter and learnt that she used to watch Instagram reels on her father's phone and came across a woman who promised to increase Instagram followers to 50k in exchange for money. The fraudster then induced the girl to transfer Rs 55,128 from her father's bank account through QR code.

Complainant a student of Class X, used father's phone to run surf social media

According to the Vanrai police, the complainant (16), is a student of Class X. Since the victim does not have a mobile of her own, she used her father's mobile and had also created her Instagram account on her father's phone.

Fraudster approached victim assuring her increase in followers, said she'd have to pay Rs 2,000 for 50k followers

On March 01, when the victim was watching Instagram reels on her father's phone, she found that a woman had sent her a follow request. The victim accepted the said request and the said woman asked the victim if she wanted to get her followers increased.

The victim agreed, after which the fraudster told the victim that she would have to pay Rs 2,000 and in an hour after the payment is done, she would get 50k followers. The victim told the woman that she can only pay Rs 600 after which the woman told her that she would only get 10k followers in that much money.

Victim demanded money back when followers did not increase

The woman then sent her a QR code and the victim then scanned the said QR code and made the payment from her father's e-payment gateway, police said.

The fraudster then made the victim pay a total of Rs 55,128 from her father's bank account and when the followers did not increase the victim demanded back her money. The fraudster then assured that she would credit the money back.

Father of complainant learnt about it when he checked bank balance on March 4

However, when the victim's father checked his bank balance on March 04, he realised that only Rs 0.08 was remaining. He then enquired with her daughter, she narrated the entire incident. The victim's father then tried calling on the fraudster's number, which was constantly switched off.

Police complaint filed on Monday

A complaint was then lodged in the matter on Monday. The police have registered a case on charges of cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property, identity theft and cheating by personation by using computer resource of the Indian Penal Code Information Technology Act.

Deputy CP (Cybercrime) alerts citizens about banking fraud

According to Cyber Crime Cell under Crime Branch of mumbai police , the most common form of online frauds are related to banks, online commerce platforms where fraudsters, posing as bank /platform officials, convince the victim to share OTP, KYC updates and sometimes send the links to be clicked to access bank accounts.

“People should know that no bank or institution is authorised to demand for bank details or PIN numbers. Unfortunately, educated people are falling prey to online frauds and losing lakhs of rupees,” explained DCP Cyber Crime , Balsingh Rajput.